Sleight of hand at Vancouver Council fails to resolve Downtown Eastside concerns

Anyone who watched the masterful end-run Vision Vancouver councillors did Thursday around a powerful and building opposition to the Historic Area Heights Review likely witnessed the best piece of political theatre in Mayor Gregor Robertson’s term.Faced on one side by an imposing array of politicians, planners, academics, housing activists and Downtown Eastside residents, and on the other an equally powerful group fighting under the banner of revitalizing Chinatown, Robertson’s colleagues engineered a split that saw them appease both sides a little bit – for now. (A revised and more complete version is being posted online today.)The way they did it, however, was nothing short of breathtaking, cutting off public opportunity to speak to the review just hours before the Planning and Environment committee was to start. There were as many as 70 to 80 speakers geared up to speak, including a group united under the motto “Fight the Height”. Leaving City Clerk Marg Coulson with the impossible task of trying to contact as many people on the speakers list with minutes counting on the clock, Robertson and Vision Councillors Raymond Louie, Andrea Reimer, Geoff Meggs, George Chow and Heather Deal pushed through a complicated “urgent motion” that on the face of it seemed to give the Downtown Eastside and its supporters what they want, a local area planning process.But upon closer examination, the residents discovered the motion hastily drawn up by Reimer doesn’t really solve their concerns. The review called for relaxed heights in several neighbourhoods around the Downtown Eastside, with the immediate impact that at least seven towers of between 12 and 15 storeys would be built. Five of those are in Chinatown and two are in the Victory Square area.The city is still sending to public hearing the higher height allowances in Chinatown, but everything else is off the table. It is also setting up a committee made up of the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council and the Building Community Society of Greater Vancouver to assist the city in setting the local area planning process for the Downtown Eastside.(The Building Community Society is the group including former mayor Mike Harcourt, planners Larry Beasley and Ray Spaxman and philanthropist Milton Wong, that wrote two stinging letters – here and here – to council criticizing the historic area heights report.)But guess what? All this last-minute manoeuvring doesn’t appear to have changed much other than to accelerate the Downtown Eastside local area planning process. It still allows for those taller buildings in Chinatown, if approved at a February public hearing. And the neighbours saw right through that little bit of sleight of hand, as Ivan Drury of the Carnegie Action Committee told Reimer afterwards.“What’s the difference between Main and Hastings and Main and Pender,” he asked when she explained that the local area planning process won’t include Chinatown.The new planning process won’t come back to council until after the November election. Complicating matters further is that the planning department is already stretched to the max, something Planning Director Brent Toderian has repeatedly told council in the past. Drury told me the February rezoning hearing will still be ugly, since the Downtown Eastside activists don’t want any of the towers built. Vision Vancouver types like Jang and Louie defend their decision to separate the two areas out in their convoluted motion, saying the flood of letters and phone calls, including the Harcourt letters and one signed by 29 university academics (which Jang called “learned people”) clearly showed council had to rethink the impact the review would have on the Downtown Eastside.But this was also a great political gift to the three opposition councillors, Suzanne Anton of the NPA and COPE’s Ellen Woodsworth and David Cadman, who called the “urgent motion” a false alarm. “There is no emergency”, Cadman said, noting that Vision Vancouver could easily have introduced their motion at the meeting where the public was scheduled to speak.All three refused to support Reimer’s motion (which was introduced by Louie), saying the process stunk. Anton said it was “insulting” to those who cared enough to put themselves on the speaker’s list. Woodsworth, who often supports Vision motions but greatly defends the right of the public to address council, found it appalling.And Cadman and Woodsworth, who want a planning process in the Downtown Eastside, found themselves in the odd position of voting against it out of principle when Vision Vancouver refused to simply put the motion over until hearing from the speakers-in-waiting.Ah, what a fine start to the 2011 election season.*Domestic note: I’m away for a short while. Don’t worry, this blog won’t stay dark.

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